Hierarchical habitat selection was studied in the North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) in Parc National du Bic, Quebec, Canada. To establish the study population, 150 porcupines were captured and immobilized using a mixture of ketamine and xylazine. Different drug doses and injection techniques were tested. Best results were obtained by injecting in the tail muscles, which allowed a 50% reduction in dose relative to reported dosage. Hierarchical analysis of habitat selection revealed that although porcupines are generalists at the landscape scale, they display habitat selection at the home range and individual tree scales. Human-used land and conifer forests were least preferred features of home ranges. Trembling aspen was found to be preferred over other deciduous trees, except for fruit-producing trees, which came out as being even more preferred at the tree scale. This study shows the importance of a multi-scale approach that includes fine-scale selection.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.79054 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Morin, Patrick |
| Contributors | Berteaux, Dominique (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Natural Resource Sciences.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001985776, proquestno: AAIMQ88269, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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